Rising energy costs and growing environmental concerns has increased the need for energy management technologies and techniques. A major source of energy usage in industrial, commercial, and residential settings is electric lighting. Alternative lighting devices may be utilized along with associated illumination and energy management systems to provide more efficient lighting, lower energy usage, monitoring and load management, and other related benefits and features. Alternative lighting devices based on solid-state luminary devices or other low wattage illumination technology may provide lower overall costs and longer replacement cycles of up to 30,000 hours or more.
However, these types of alternative lighting devices may have a higher up-front cost than traditional lighting. Moreover, it may be desirable to control which lighting devices are allowed to be used in a particular illumination system, both for ensuring compatibility and quality of the devices used in the system, as well as for providing a licensing enforcement mechanism for manufactures producing compatible devices. The rapid pace of development in this area, coupled with the longer replacement cycles may also create a situation wherein, when replacement is necessary for one of these devices, the capabilities and specifications of compatible lighting devices may have changed from the original version. In addition, the high up-front cost coupled with the longer replacement cycles may create a secondary market for these types of lighting devices.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure made herein is presented.